1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to computer-implemented database management systems, and, in particular, to a technique for determining a workbasket identification for an item in a data store.
2. Description of Related Art
For nearly half a century computers have been used by businesses to manage information such as numbers and text, mainly in the form of coded data. However, business data represents only a small part of the world""s information. As storage, communication and information processing technologies advance, and as their costs come down, it becomes more feasible to digitize other various types of data, store large volumes of it, and be able to distribute it on demand to users at their place of business or home.
New digitization technologies have emerged in the last decade to digitize images, audio, and video, giving birth to a new type of digital multimedia information. These multimedia objects are quite different from the business data that computers managed in the past, and often require more advanced information management system infrastructures with new capabilities. Such systems are often called xe2x80x9cdigital librariesxe2x80x9d (DL).
Bringing new digital technologies can do much more than just replace physical objects with their electronic representation. It enables instant access to information; supports fast, accurate, and powerful search mechanisms; provides, new xe2x80x9cexperientialxe2x80x9d (i.e. virtual reality) user interfaces; and implements new ways of protecting the rights of information owners. These properties make digital library solutions even more attractive and acceptable not only to corporate IS organizations, but to the information owners, publishers and service providers.
Generally, business data is created by a business process (an airline ticket reservation, a deposit at the bank, and a claim processing at an insurance company are examples). Most of these processes have been automated by computers and produce business data in digital form (text and numbers). Therefore it is usually structured coded data. Multimedia data, on the contrary, cannot be fully pre-structured (its use is not fully predictable) because it is the result of the creation of a human being or the digitization of an object of the real world (x-rays, geophysical mapping, etc.) rather than a computer algorithm.
The average size of business data in digital form is relatively small. A banking recordxe2x80x94including a customers name, address, phone number, account number, balance, etc.xe2x80x94represents at most a few hundred characters, i.e. few hundreds/thousands of bits. The digitization of multimedia information (image, audio, video) produces a large set of bits called an xe2x80x9cobjectxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cblobsxe2x80x9d (Binary Large Objects). For example, a digitized image of the parchments from the Vatican Library takes as much as the equivalent of 30 million characters (30 MB) to be stored. The digitization of a movie, even after compression, may take as much as the equivalent of several billions of characters (3-4 GB) to be stored.
Multimedia information is typically stored as much larger objects, ever increasing in quantity and therefore requiring special storage mechanisms. Classical business computer systems have not been designed to directly store such large objects. Specialized storage technologies may be required for certain types of information, e.g. media streamers for video or music. Because certain multimedia information needs to be preserved xe2x80x9cforeverxe2x80x9d it also requires special storage management functions providing automated back-up and migration to new storage technologies as they become available and as old technologies become obsolete.
A workbasket is a term used to refer to a particular task within a series of tasks or workflow. An item can be any data object which has attributes. Workflow refers to a defined series of tasks within an organization to produce a final outcome. For example, one workflow system may enable defining workflow so that a document is routed from a writer to a proofreader to a printer. Workflow management is an essential element in today""s enterprise data processing. An xe2x80x9centerprisexe2x80x9d is a business organization that uses computers.
At any one time, access to an item in a multi-media database by a workflow process generally is limited to a single user or single workflow application, even though many workflow applications within the workflow process may require access to the same item. This is necessary because some tasks logically must precede or follow other tasks (e.g., a document can only be proofread after it has been written), and without the ability to determine where in the workflow process an item resides, the workflow applications must precede in a strict order.
However, having the ability to determine where in a workflow process a data item resides, would allow workflow processes to be run more efficiently by executing multiple tasks in parallel (i.e., multi-tasking) or without regard to a specific order. For example, as part of a document workflow system, a document must be cite checked and spell checked after the document has been written. A conventional workflow process would be limited to performing such tasks in a fixed sequential order, even though multi-tasking would be more efficient, because the workflow applications performing the cite check and spell check would not know whether the document is still being written.
Additionally, when an item is being updated as part of a task within the workflow process, the item is said to be checked out because it is unavailable for other workflow applications. Without knowing whether an item has been checked out, a user may invoke an application requiring the item only to find that the application returns an error because the item has been checked out by another workflow application and is not available. Thus, it is important for a user wishing to invoke an application within the workflow process to know whether the item has been checked out in addition to knowing in which workbasket, if any, the item resides.
Consequently, there is a need in the art for a technique for determining a workbasket identification for an item in a data store as well as determining whether an item has been checked out that solves the deficiencies mentioned above.
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, and to overcome other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for a technique for determining a workbasket identification for an item in a data store as well as determining whether an item has been checked out.
In accordance with the present invention, a command is executed on a computer to retrieve data from a data store connected to the computer. Initially, a request is received to identify a workbasket in which an item resides. First, it is determined whether the item resides in a workbasket. When it is determined that the item resides in a workbasket, a workbasket identification is returned.